1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an intelligent multi-axial intuitive joystick which is suitable for use by both left-handers and right-handers, capable of multiple special functions, and applicable to various machines requiring moving instructions.
2. Description of Related Art
Unidirectional or multi-directional operation is often required in general machine tools, industry-specific machinery, application-specific tools, or transmission equipment, for controlling the movement of various mechanisms, such as the forward/backward or upward/downward movement of a mechanical shaft or arm. Therefore, the advent of control joysticks has brought tremendous convenience to related operators. An operator only has to hold and gently push the joystick forward, backward, leftward, or rightward to effectively control the movement of different machine parts. In a nutshell, the joystick makes it possible to control everything in one hand.
Commercially available hand-operated joysticks with a single-spring center-resetting mechanism typically provide biaxial control along the X- and Y-axes. The so-called biaxial control generally includes control along the X-axis, whereby a certain mechanism is moved forward and backward; and control along the Y-axis such that the mechanism can be moved leftward and upward, as well as rightward and downward. Of course, biaxial control also includes controlling the mechanism diagonally, such as by pushing the joystick in directions between the X- and Y-axes, thus moving the mechanism forward, leftward, and upward at the same time; or forward, rightward, and downward at the same time; or backward, leftward, and upward at the same time; or backward, rightward, and downward at the same time. However, biaxial control joysticks do not provide precise diagonal control (i.e., control along directions between the X- and Y-axes) and therefore may sometimes lead to incorrect operations.
In consideration of the foregoing, the joystick industry has developed the triaxial (X-, Y-, and Z-axis) joystick with an additional rotating element, wherein the head of the joystick is rotatable to control the movement of one or another mechanism. More specifically, in such a triaxial control unit, control along the X- and Y-axes corresponds to forward, backward, leftward, and rightward movement; and control along the Z-axis corresponds to upward and downward movement, wherein the correspondence between the X-, Y-, and Z-axes and the various moving directions may vary.
Although the additional Z-axis offers convenience in operation, the triaxial joystick still has its disadvantages. First of all, control can only be carried out along the three axes. Secondly, as the control mechanism of the Z-axis secondary controller consists in rotating the head of the joystick, it is often confusing to the operator whether the clockwise or counterclockwise rotation corresponds to forward, backward, leftward, rightward, upward, or downward movement, and such confusion may cause incorrect operations of serious consequences. The major drawback of this design is that the operation required is not intuitive; in other words, the operation does not conform to the habits of the human body.
In addition, neither the biaxial nor the triaxial joystick has a dead band. Therefore, if the joystick is touched or shaken by accident, an abnormal instruction or an incorrect operation may be activated and result in immediate danger.
In contrast to the design concept of dead bands, an operator trying to operate the joystick and applies a force thereto may still move the joystick by mistake and give rise to incorrect operations.
Moreover, during the manufacturing process of a joystick or after the joystick has been used for some time, it is often very difficult for the joystick to return exactly to the intersection point of a cross, i.e., the point (0, 0) on the X-Y plane, when the joystick resumes its original position. In practice, a joystick tends to be offset slightly from the original center point. However, if the offset position is used as the origin from which the joystick is re-activated to control the movement of a certain mechanism, subsequent errors or incorrect operations will be aggravated. This phenomenon is mainly due to the lack of an origin calibration function.
Besides, a user of the conventional joystick will not receive reliable feedback from the joystick in hand of the magnitude of force applied to the joystick. Also, the conventional joystick does not have an axial-direction limiting element and therefore does not provide effective control along non-diagonal directions.
In addition, the conventional Z- and C-axis intuitive operation requires the use of the thumb. However, as the dexterity of the thumb is different between the left and right hands, the operation may be clumsy.
It is also well known that the conventional joystick does not have a working status display function. Hence, there is no information available for the operator to know whether the joystick is in a standby mode or is out of order, let alone the magnitude of force applied or the distance moved.
The conventional rotary secondary joystick member tends to be mistaken. Further, the conventional joystick does not provide connection for system surveillance. According to above description, the conventional joystick obviously leaves much room for improvement.